Homecoming
by DinoDina
Summary: Jack comes home after "Journey's End". Janto oneshot.


There were Daleks on the Plass.

Jack had been thinking of other things and hadn't registered them, but then he noticed and _there were Daleks on the Plass_.

They were all deactivated—dead—and looked like they had only just touched down on the planet. That brought him some comfort, as did the absence of bodies, but still… there were Daleks on the Plass and as he got closer to the tourist office, he saw even more of them and—

There was no door.

Jack broke into a run, crushing the glass from the door under his feet as he entered the destroyed office. Ianto's desk had been blown apart, his chair lying several feet away and missing its back. The panel behind the desk that kept the Hub hidden was open.

His heart fell down into his knees and Jack shouted Ianto's name—Gwen's name, somebody's name, the Daleks _did not_ get to his team—as he ran down the stairs. The cog door was open. It was just another thing on the list of things that had gone wrong that day.

Jack took out his Webley—not that it would do anything—and approached the door. He was scared to see inside, the what-ifs dashing through his head and outweighing the feeling of Everything Will Be Alright.

Gun drawn out in front of him, Jack entered.

There was a Dalek in the Hub.

The last pieces of his optimism disappeared quickly as the feeling of profound dread set in. He knew, more than most, what Daleks were capable of, and to find one in his Hub… in his _home_ … well. There were things that Jack was afraid of and there were things that made Jack's blood run cold. This? This was pure terror.

He walked around the Dalek—disabled, like all the rest, but what had it managed to do before that?—to the middle of the Hub. There was no sign of life anywhere, not even from Myfanwy's aerie.

It was irrational, he knew. The Doctor had saved the world, had gotten rid of the Daleks, and he'd _seen_ his team alive and well on the screen in the TARDIS. Still, fears were fears, irrational or not, and he had visual evidence of hundreds of Daleks to support said fears.

"Ianto!" he called again. No answer. _Damn it_. The lights in the Hub were still on, so it wasn't like Ianto had gone home. But— "Ianto."

Jack stuck his Webley back into its holder and ran towards the couch, thinking he'd seen the familiar suit. As he skidded to a stop, he found that he was right. There, on the couch under the 'TORCHWOOD' sign, with a disabled Dalek only twenty feet away, with the Rift predictor programs beeping out steady rhythms on the next day's debris… Ianto Jones was curled up, sound asleep.

Of course he was. He hadn't even taken his shoes off. Jack shook his head at himself; of course Ianto wasn't dead. They'd seen each other over the TARDIS cameras, but still…

Quietly, Jack sank to his knees, gently putting a hand next to Ianto's head. Ianto's face was turned away from him, but Jack didn't doubt that his presence didn't disturb Ianto in the slightest; he didn't even twitch. For a minute, Jack just sat there, looking at him. But he couldn't handle the silence for long.

"Ianto," he whispered, lightly shaking his shoulder.

Ianto curled in on himself with a quiet moan, but didn't wake. He twisted sideways, turning his head towards Jack but his body away.

"Ianto." Jack tried again. He bent down and pressed a light kiss against his temple. "Ianto."

Third time was the charm, and Ianto opened his eyes, staring blearily up at Jack. "What?—Jack!"

"Yeah," Jack breathed out, a large smile splitting his face in half. "Yeah, I… hi."

"Hi," Ianto laughed, smiling as well. He lifted himself up on one arm into a half-sitting position; he couldn't rise further because Jack was bent over him. "You—"

Jack didn't let him finish, pulling him into a desperate hug, burying his face into Ianto's shoulder and just… breathing. Knowing that they'd both survived, that Ianto was safe enough to sleep, that they—it was a good moment. Peaceful. Jack was relieved to sense that Ianto was holding on to him just as tightly.

"Ianto," he said again, muffled. "Ianto, I'm sorry. If I'd known—the Daleks—Ianto—"

"I know." Ianto smiled into his shoulder. "And that's why you had to leave. We're fine. Gwen… she went home, she's been home for—oh, I don't know for how long. I didn't—I'm sorry—I couldn't—"

"And I would never have asked you to." Jack held him just a bit tighter, knowing of Ianto's past with the Daleks and not even thinking of berating him for not escorting Gwen home. (He was more concerned about not comforting Ianto earlier—he hadn't been the only one who'd felt his world collapse and had forgotten that.) He swallowed around the lump in his throat. "The Dalek in the Hub. How did it get here? How did you stop it? What if—"

"Through the door, Tosh did, and nothing happened." Ianto leaned back, not relinquishing his hold on Jack but bringing them face-to-face. "So don't worry about the what-ifs or the Dalek; I'll clean it up tomorrow. And we can probably let UNIT take care of all the other ones. Jack…"

"I know."

Ianto took a deep breath. "Yeah, me, too."

"So what now?" Jack dared to look at the destruction around them.

"We pick up where we left off. The end is where we start from, right?" Ianto sat up, dislodged himself from the hug, and took Jack's hand. "So let's just keep on living. Pick up the Hub, get rid of the Dalek, handle whatever the Rift throws at us."

Jack ruffled Ianto's hair with his free hand. "When did you become so pragmatic?"

"When I got shot at by a Dalek on more than one occasion."

"Right."

"Sorry." Apparently, Ianto could see how his casualness had upset Jack. "But really… at the risk of sounding ridiculous, we've got to live in the moment. And I can think of no better way to do that than going to bed."

"Now?" Jack looked around again. Surely, Ianto wasn't going to ignore the mess.

But Ianto nodded. "Now."

"My place, I suppose?"

"Yes, please." He stood up. "And the mess will be here tomorrow. The Dalek, all of it. But I'm tired. And you are, too, so don't go there."

"Yes, Sir." Jack dropped a kiss on Ianto's cheek as they walked up the stairs to his office, pointedly ignoring the Dalek.

Ianto laughed quietly and Jack smiled. He'd thought, for those few horrible moments, that he'd never hear that sound again. That he'd never see Ianto again. That everything they shared would be gone. That Ianto would have died thinking that Jack was gone, that he didn't care.

Jack tightened his grip on Ianto's waist. He would never let go. Not again.

~oOo~

As they got closer to Jack's office, Ianto began to take the lead. Now it was not Jack holding his hand, but him holding Jack's. He resolutely _did not_ look at the Dalek—he wouldn't be half as coherent as he was if he actually acknowledged it—and surreptitiously made sure that Jack wasn't looking at it, either.

For all their confidence, Ianto knew they were scared. Scared of the Daleks, scared of what almost happened, scared of what _will_ happen once day. As they walked into Jack's office, Jack kissed him. Just like that. Just leaned over and kissed him like he sometimes did. Ianto smiled and, in turn, kissed Jack.

It was different. Tactile—only that wasn't the word, not really, because they had so much physical contact on a regular basis—and comforting more than anything else. Easily, it could have escalated. No matter how tired they were, they were rarely _too_ tired.

But not that night.

The entrance to Jack's bunker was in the floor behind his desk. If one knew where to look—as

Ianto did—then it was easy to lift up the piece of flooring that covered it. It was easy to climb down the stairs and into the small bed. Ianto turned sideways so he could hold Jack without constricting either of them, and Jack tugged the too-large blanket over them.

Kissing one last time, they closed their eyes, waiting for the day's events to stop flashing through their minds and allow them to sleep.

.oOo.

Ianto woke up first.

He knew he was first because he was a light sleeper, and if Jack had so much as made a sound, he would have known. As it was, he and Jack were still holding each other, having barely moved throughout the night.

But no, that wasn't true.

Neither of them had had a fitful sleep, the previous few hours having been filled with nightmares and sleepy reassurances. In all honesty, Ianto didn't remember most of the night, just Jack's steady presence.

His last dream, the one that had made him wake up, hadn't been unpleasant. It had been a memory, a fragment. A reminder of easier, happier times when he knew he and Jack would be able to get past their fears. Now, as the chill of the Hub set in and his eyes got used to the dark, Ianto became acutely aware of his discomfort.

The room was small. It was dark. The cold wall was pressing against his shoulder. Jack was faced away from him, but was _so close_.

Ianto swallowed and closed his eyes. The bunker was the last place he wanted to be, so soon after facing a Dalek—Jack had said there were Daleks on the Plass, and that was right above them—and he still felt guilty about leaving Gwen alone to return home, even if both she and Jack had told him he'd done nothing wrong.

As Ianto shifted, he felt Jack move against him. Several seconds later, Jack was turning around and giving him a wide smile, drawing him away from the wall and into an embrace.

"Good morning," Ianto whispered against his lips.

"Hello," Jack replied. He ran a hand through Ianto's hair. "Sleep well?"

"Yes," Ianto lied. 'Well' wasn't the correct word, but they'd slept better than they would have if they had slept alone.

"Good." Jack leaned forward for another kiss.

As great as it would have been to not get up—it was still early, Ianto thought, and it wasn't like they fell asleep that long ago—they had to. There were still Daleks to clean up on the Plass, there was still a Dalek in the Hub, and they still needed to report to the Queen and coordinate cleanup with both UNIT and the city.

Jack tugged at his earlobe. "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

Jack tugged at his earlobe again. "You're thinking too loud." He gave it a small nip. "Stop it."

"As much as I'd love to, we have work to do."

"I'm the boss." Jack pointed out. "And as the boss, I'm agreeing with you and putting in a call to UNIT and telling them to clean up this mess—yes, even Cardiff—and consider it retribution for the Osterhagen Key."

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "You can do that?"

"I'm Torchwood Director, aren't I?"

"I—"

"Although we _do_ need to get up." He sighed, resigned despite his earlier dismissal. "We need to move the Dalek and call the constabulary. And the Mayor. And the Queen. And coordinate the cleanup with UNIT, even if they do the physical part of it. As much as I'd like them to do our work for us, we need to do it, too."

"Quite right to," Ianto agreed.

"So, since this—" he broke off to look at Ianto's watch and gave a half-grin. "This says it's five in the morning. I think that gives us enough time for a nice grope before we head off to work."

Ianto smiled, ignoring the fact that they _were_ at—or rather, under—work. "You _are_ the boss."

They should have been able to stay there. To lie together, holding each other, touching each other, doing everything in their power to be there for each other. (They had such a limited time together, they _needed_ to take every moment they could. They had such a limited time together, and they'd already spent so much of it avoiding the truth and struggled to make up for what they'd lost. They had such a limited time together, so why weren't they making the most of it? Why didn't they spend every moment they could just _living_?)

But Torchwood waited for no one. It didn't wait for Jack and Ianto to be ready to get up, and it wouldn't wait for Gwen and _her_ life.

Ianto tightened his hold on Jack and buried his head in his shoulder. "We should get up."

"We should." Jack nodded, his hair tickling Ianto. "Ianto… I can't believe I'm saying this. Let's stay until the sunrise? There's only so much we can do, and we're going to be run off our feet later."

"I say that's a very sensible idea." So maybe it wasn't _completely_ sensible, but it was going to be enough.

Jack set an alarm onto his wriststrap as Ianto made himself more comfortable, and for that short bit of time, they would have a reprieve.

 **Thanks for reading! :D**


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